Cult of Character

Frenchtown Farms has grown a cult following of their own, breathing new life into forgotten vines on a storied hillside in North Yuba.

Esther Mobley called Renaissance “California’s strangest vineyard,” and it likely is. Its steep terraces were carved into this remote mountain in the Sierra Foothills half a century ago by members of a sophisticated doomsday cult, The Fellowship of Friends. Those old vines are still rooted to vinifera rootstock, surrounded by the lavish, marbled (and hooved) remnants of Apollo, the Fellowship’s headquarters.

Since 2015 however, wine growing outsiders Aaron and Cara Mockrish have called it home. With the Fellowship in decline, Aaron and Cara took an opportunity to ascend its steep granite peaks and revitalize the abandoned vines that once produced some of California’s most iconic wines, and Frenchtown Farms was born.

With their 8th vintage now fermenting, they’ve done much more than revive one historic vineyard. Frenchtown Farms, along with their mentor Gideon Beinstock of Clos Saron (himself a renowned former winemaker for the Fellowship), Dani Rozman of La Onda, and several of their own intrepid interns, are planting more every year, building the North Yuba AVA into a staple of California wine growing. They are wagering that North Yuba’s steep granite hillsides and varied microclimates are the future of the state’s great wines, and I would bet on it too.

In fact, I’m all in.

Aaron and Cara demonstrating the fundamentals of vineyard rehabilitation on Renaissance’s Slope 19. Normally, we don’t drink while we’re farming… but it was Kayne’s birthday.

Frenchtown Farms Current Releases